10 things to avoid when choosing a date

By Juliet O

We all make mistakes, especially when it comes to love. Love can blind us to a person’s faults. In love’s darker moments, when confronted with warning signs that tell us blatantly that we shouldn’t be with this person we foolishly love, and that they are hurting us, we stubbornly choose to ignore them despite our better judgment.

Luckily, when we are faced with our own catastrophic mistakes, we can learn from them and avoid making the same mistakes in the future. Falling for the wrong person is one of the biggest — and most painful — mistakes you can make in the game of love. You shouldn’t feel too bad if you’ve ever loved someone who ripped your heart out of your chest to use like a soccer ball. We’ve all been there, seriously. But from a person who’s been in that situation, I hope it never happens again and that we all learn from our mistakes. So, seasoned daters — here are 10 types of daters you should avoid at all cost to prevent future heartache. Pay attention to these red flags!

10. The workaholic

It takes a special kind of person to handle dating a workaholic. Either you can handle it, or you can’t. A workaholic will, 99.9% of the time, put you second to their work — and not only their work, but their boss, their co-workers, and everyone and everything else associated with that work. It’s not in the nature of a workaholic to spend hours gazing into your eyes and spending whole days in bed with you without getting jittery about working. Even if you marry a workaholic, this person will bring a Blackberry on the honeymoon and give it equal amounts of attention as you. Can you handle it? If you can’t, stay away.

9. The adult baby

Wah wah wah. Nothing worse than an adult baby! This person whines and complains about everything. They might also have an unnatural attachment to their mother/father/both parents as if they were still a child. Can you handle this level of immaturity? Adult babies are unbearably high-maintenance and require physically draining amounts of attention from the person they are with. Unless you get a serious kick out of playing mommy or daddy, avoid grown children.

8. The rampant flirt

Who can handle being in a relationship with someone who is constantly flirting with other people? Not only is this mind-bogglingly thoughtless and inconsiderate, but it’s straight-up annoying. If you get the sense that the person you’re dating is a flirt-a-holic with anyone other than you, kick ‘em to the curb and hit the road.

7. The mooch

If your date is mooching off your limited resources beyond the reasonable limit, you need to cut their mooching ways out of your life. Does this person conveniently ‘forget’ their wallet whenever you go out to each? Ask you to borrow money that is mysteriously never repaid? Pilfer things from your apartment without letting you know? Ask you blatantly for freebies, whether they be gifts, vacations, or anything else? Gross. Don’t date a mooch.

6. The angry one

Never date a person with anger management issues. People with anger issues are often masking deeper, darker issues, like cycles of abuse, whether they be emotional or physical. If you sense that the person you are with has a quick temper (exhibiting behavior such as road rage, anger at children or animals, irrational outbursts) tell them to seek professional help and then remove them from your life.

5. The jealous one

Jealous people are jealous because they want to control you. Jealousy is an emotion that correlates strongly with feelings of control, manipulation, and distrust. If you feel that your partner is overly jealous all the time, telling you who you can or cannot see, asking you where you’ve been, threatening people who approach you in bars with physical violence, you need to take a step back from the relationship ASAP. You cannot be with a person who does not trust you, bottom line.

4. The rude one

A little rudeness might just stem from ignorance. Maybe this person doesn’t know that tipping is customary, or that you shouldn’t elbow people standing in front of you if you want to pass. If rudeness is based on ignorance, simply inform the rude party that they ought to alter their behavior. However, if rudeness is endemic — that is to say, if the person in question is just plain rude by nature and won’t change their behavior, you shouldn’t date this person. If your friends can’t get along with the person you’re dating, that is a huge warning sign that you shouldn’t be dating that person in the first place.

3. The sexually confused

Do not date someone who is sexually confused. It will only further their sexual confusion and give you a huge, paranoid complex when it comes to relationships in the future. If you are dating someone who does not know if they are gay or straight, gently let this person know that they should hold off on dating anyone, gay or straight, until they figure things out.

2. The on-the-sly cheater

If you cheat once, you are much more likely to cheat again. This is not to say that cheaters cannot change their ways with enough willpower. I’m merely saying that if the person you are seeing has cycles of cheating behavior in their past relationships, perhaps it’s time to readjust where the two of you stand with one another. The best rule of thumb is to just not date people who’ve consistently cheated in past relationships. You don’t have to personally catch someone in the act to prove they are a cheater.